Michael then prepared to leave.
"I can't waste any more time here — there's still a lot I need to do," he muttered to himself.
He went looking for Marta to say goodbye and found her outside, watering the plants.
Stepping out, Michael called, "Auntie, I'm heading out now."
"Huh? Leaving already? But you just got here," she said, surprised.
"Ah, I'm sorry," Michael replied with a faint smile. "I just received an urgent message from my university — I have to return to America right away."
Marta stopped watering, though the hose was still running, spilling water onto the ground.
"Hmm… but weren't you supposed to stay for several days? I was planning to introduce you to everyone here and show you around the whole place."
"I really wanted to stay, too," he said apologetically, "but this came up out of nowhere. There's nothing I can do now. I have to leave today. And thank you again for the meal."
"Oh, there's no need for that," Marta said softly. "You're our guest — but it's a shame you're leaving so soon. We barely even got to know you."
Then she added a bit hurriedly, "Wait a moment, let me call Jens. He can drive you to Regensburg Hauptbahnhof."
"No, no, that won't be necessary," Michael said quickly. The thought of another long, boring car ride didn't appeal to him at all. He now had the Intra World door, so the journey would only feel like a waste of time.
"I can manage on my own," he said. "Besides, the local bus should be here any minute now."
With that, Michael started walking away.
"W–wait a minute!" Marta called after him. "What about your grandfather's house?"
"Ah, I'll talk to a big contractor about that later," he replied, waving dismissively as he walked off.
Marta looked like she wanted to say more, but Michael ignored her and kept going.
Meanwhile, from the second–floor window, Yuna had been quietly watching everything.
....
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Scene change————
In the depths of Siberia lay a hidden bunker — a place utterly different from the world above. Even as fierce snowstorms raged on the surface, the atmosphere here remained untouched.
Calling it a secret base wouldn't be wrong, for only a handful of people knew of its existence — and none of them were ordinary.
Its codename was Vector-13, serving as the headquarters of the VSK, a covert directorate under the Federation. The full name was Vedomstvo Spetsial'nogo Kontrolya (Ведомство Специального Контроля — "Directorate of Special Control"), once a sub-branch of the NKVD during the old Soviet era. When the Union fell, the organization was dissolved — until the early 2000s, when the FSA quietly reconstituted it to handle "unconventional intelligence and threat assessment."
At present, the head of the VSK was Elena Ammosova, a 48-year-old Yakut woman and former Deputy Director of the Federal Security Agency. She also served as the Director of Cultural Heritage and Archives (Rosarkhiv).
Publicly, she appeared to be nothing more than a cultural bureaucrat — a woman devoted to preserving heritage and history.
But in truth, Elena was a calculating and cold-natured individual. The one thing she despised most was incompetence. You could call her a beauty with brains, and it wouldn't be wrong — even at 48, she looked no older than 35. That youthfulness wasn't the result of makeup or luxury — she had never cared for such things — but rather the product of her disciplined, rigorous daily routine, which still kept her as sharp and effective as ever.
"Ma'am, may I come in?"
"Hmm."
Elena set down her black coffee on the desk — a minimalist surface holding only a few essential files and a small globe of the world.
The iron door creaked open, and a middle-aged man stepped inside. He was wearing a white suit and holding a tablet-like device — one with no visible brand logo.
"Sorry to disturb you at this hour, ma'am," he said, his tone cautious. "But I've just received some new information regarding Case K-17."
"Huh?" Elena raised an eyebrow. "And what have you found this time, Reznikov?"
"You probably remember Friedrich Keller — the member of the SS-Begleitkommando 'N-12' unit — who went into hiding after the war under the alias 'Karl Gutmann.'"
Elena thought for a moment and said, "Ah yes, they were in charge of the courier supply for the Ahnenerbe that night. But he was eliminated ten years ago, wasn't he? And we never found anything useful from him — you filed that report yourself."
"Yes," he replied quietly, "but I've recently received information that his grandson has arrived in Bayern. And that's… not normal. In my opinion, we should reopen this mission."
"Reznikov, I don't see anything unusual here. A grandson visiting his grandfather's old home — what's so strange about that? Look, Reznikov, you're overthinking this. Whatever you're looking for was lost a long time ago. Chasing it now would just be a waste of time."
Elena took a sip of her black coffee, her eyes cold. "We have plenty of other matters to deal with. You should be focusing on Incident M-41 right now — I don't want those carrion crows finding it before we do." She set the cup down a little harder than necessary. "Do you understand me?"
Reznikov said nothing; he simply turned on his tablet and pulled something up.
"I hope this will help you change your mind."
He showed Elena a CCTV footage. "The boy you saw shopping — his name is Michael, Friedrich's grandson. It's from a supermarket in Munich."
Elena looked at Reznikov with clear irritation, as if deeply disappointed in him. "So what?"
Reznikov spoke calmly. "This footage is from the morning of October 17th, around 11:30." Then he showed Elena another video, one taken from the internet. "And this one — it's from Los Angeles, around 1 a.m. the same day."
Elena looked closely. In this video, Michael appeared to be dressed in medieval-style clothing, almost like cosplay.
"The distance between Munich and Los Angeles is about 9,600 kilometers," he said slowly. "It's impossible to cover that so fast… unless he has…"
"Teleportation?" Elena finished his sentence. At last, she was taking it seriously.
Reznikov looked at her intently. "So — what's your decision now?"
For the first time, Elena's expression shifted — calculated disbelief giving way to something sharper, more dangerous: curiosity.
Reznikov's voice softened, almost a whisper. "So, what's your decision now?"
Elena leaned back in her chair, eyes fixed on the frozen frame on the tablet.